by Amy Cross
Alex nodded.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jane whispered to him.
“How long would it have all taken?” Alex asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the corpse for a moment. His eyes lingered on the thick, black staples holding her chest closed, before finally he turned to Tomlin. “Would this have -”
Tomlin waited for him to continue. “Would it have what?”
Alex paused, again struggling to remember the question he was about to ask. After a moment, he realized Jane was waiting too.
“Would it… Would it have taken a long time?” he asked finally. That was it. He thought. Maybe. Hopefully.
“It would have been quick,” Tomlin replied. “The initial assault, at least. After that, with the blood loss, I’d imagine she lost consciousness within thirty or forty seconds. Most of the wounds probably occurred after that point.”
“A small mercy,” Alex whispered.
“Not really,” Jane pointed out. “Thirty or forty seconds, that’s a long time, especially if you know you’re… I mean, she probably did realize, at the end. It’s quite possible that she -”
“Okay,” Alex said, interrupting her. “I think we all get it.”
“I just mean -”
“We get it,” he said firmly.
She paused, before stepping closer to the body. “I noticed some of her fingernails were broken, does that mean there was a struggle?”
Tomlin nodded. “Good catch. Yes, she seems to have made an attempt to fight back, although there was no useful material under the nails themselves. No DNA, no threads, just a little cement dust from the ground.”
“What does that mean?” Alex asked.
“Maybe she tried to crawl away,” Jane suggested. “Maybe she was trying to drag herself away from the killer, which suggests he stopped for a moment and then resumed his attack, perhaps when he realized she wasn’t dead. If that’s the case, it seems likely that she struggled and -”
“Yes,” Alex said firmly.
“And that she -” Pausing, Jane realized that she’d made her point.
“We need to find the murder weapon,” Alex continued. “The killer’s probably long gone by now, so we have to act first.”
“With all due respect,” Jane replied, “how do you know he’s long gone? Or she, or whatever… It could just as easily be someone from around here.”
Alex shook his head. “There’s no-one in Bowley who’d do something like this.”
“With all due respect -”
“There’s no-one,” Alex replied, interrupting her again. “I know the people around here. Christ, Jane, you do too. There’s no-one in this town who’d be capable of doing something like this.”
She paused. “Maybe there is.”
He sighed.
“You can’t be sure it’s someone who just passed through,” she pointed out, before stepping closer to the table and peering at the knife wounds on the dead woman’s belly. Her lips moved slightly, as if she was talking to herself under her breath as she looked along the corpse. Finally, she began to frown.
“Anything you’d like to share with us, Ms. Freeman?” Tomlin asked after a moment.
“Only that…” She paused, before grabbing a notebook from her pocket and drawing the outline of a human figure, and then adding marks to represent each wound. “Just give me a sec, will you?”
“I’ve already taken photos,” Tomlin told her.
“Hang on.” Hurrying out of the room, she left them standing on either side of the table.
“Is she always like this?” Tomlin asked.
“She’s pretty good at what she does,” Alex replied. “I usually find it’s better to let her get on with things. Unfortunately, she had a tendency to be a little…”
“A little what?”
Alex paused, trying to pick his words with care. “Touchy-feely.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“We just need to catch the bastard who did this,” Alex muttered. “Don’t need to know whether he wet the bed as a kid and didn’t feel like Mummy loved him.”
“Check this out,” Jane said, hurrying back through and holding up her notebook along with a page from the file on Caitlin Somers’ death showing the injuries that the seventeen-year-old had sustained during her murder nine years earlier. “Spot the difference?”
Taking a closer look, Alex immediately realized what she meant: with just a few minor variations, the fourteen stab wounds on Caitlin’s body were basically in the exact same pattern as the stab wounds on Mel, as if the killer had deliberately tried to replicate the injuries.
“This doesn’t prove conclusively that it’s the same killer,” Alex said after a moment. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“Sure,” she replied, “but it definitely proves it wasn’t just a random attack by some passing stranger. At the very least, it was someone who knew about Caitlin Somers’ murder. Right?” She waited for him to say something. “Alex? I’m right, aren’t I? I have to be.”
He slowly nodded, before suddenly turning to look over at the door.
“You okay?” Jane asked.
He waited, as if he expected someone or something to appear in the doorway. Finally, he turned back to Jane. “I, uh…” he began to say, before pausing for a moment. “Yeah,” he continued after a few seconds. “Let’s get back to the office.”
Turning, he headed to the door.
“You’re going to catch the bastard this time, aren’t you?” a female voice asked.
Stopping, Alex turned back to look at Jane. “What did you say?”
“Sir?”
He looked at Tomlin, and then at the body on the table. “Nothing,” he muttered, before heading out.
***
“Absolute nonsense,” Audrey replied, sipping at her gin and tonic through a straw, “it will be wonderful to have Benjamin home for a few days. The poor boy deserves to spend Christmas with his family for once, after all those years on the road. Well, wherever he’s been.”
“Mum, it’s not that we don’t want him to come home,” Jack said with a sigh, “it’s just that -” He sat back as the waitress set his coffee down, and then he waited for her to head back into the cafe. The last thing he wanted was to be overheard talking about such a sensitive matter. “I didn’t say that we don’t want him here, I just said that Beth and I… We have certain reservations.”
“You were always too hard on him.”
“I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.”
“Of course it is.” She took another sip, as her gold earrings glinted in the afternoon sunlight. “I remember when you were all just little babies, and the two of you would cut Benjamin out of your games, even though he was the eldest. Honestly, you and Beth have no idea how much of a little club you set up as children, excluding your brother at every possible opportunity.”
“He -”
“I used to see him sitting out in the garden by himself when you two had gone off to the corner shop alone.”
“We always -”
“And although he never complained, I knew what was going on. It wasn’t nice of you. And why did you do it, eh? I never understood.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Instinct, maybe?” He paused for a moment, as he realized that although there was perhaps a hint of truth to what she was saying, there was no point trying to mount a defense. “You’re probably right,” he added finally. “I’m sure Christmas will be great. In fact, Jane and I were thinking that instead of having Ben stay with us, maybe you’d like it if he slept in your spare room?”
She shook her head as she drank more gin and tonic.
“It’d be a good way for you to spend time with him,” he pointed out.
“Aren’t we having Christmas at Beth’s this year?”
“Yes, but -”
“So he can stay with her. Or with you. It makes no sense for him to be with me, I’m all the way out there on the edge of town. He wants to be in the center, so he can see his friends.�
�
“What friends?” Jack muttered.
“There you go again. Sniping at your brother.”
“Then there’s Dad,” he replied.
“Let me guess. Your dear alcoholic, pornography-addicted father isn’t exactly jumping for joy at the news?”
“That’s an under-statement. In every regard.”
“I’m not surprised,” she continued. “He’s probably deeply ashamed. One would hope so, anyway.”
“Mum -”
“You know what he did to Benjamin!”
“He was just doing what he thought was right!”
“Nonsense,” she spat back at him, as her tone hardened a little. “No parent should ever do that to a child. It showed a complete lack of trust and a total, utter lack of respect. He was basically showing poor Benjamin how little he actually cared for him.” She sighed. “I was so angry when I found out. Not just regular angry, the way I often got around your father, but that day… I was livid.”
“There were certain…” Jack paused, before realizing yet again that there was no point getting into an argument with his mother on the subject. “I think Dad’ll come to Christmas,” he continued finally. “It might not be some great family reunion, but at least he’s willing to be in the same room as Ben.”
“How magnanimous of him.”
“It’s just…” Pausing, he checked his phone, but there was still no message from Jane. “This is turning out to be a great Christmas so far, huh? A murder in town, everyone on edge, Ben coming home…”
“That poor girl,” Audrey replied, “I can’t imagine what her parents must be going through. I heard she was left in a bin behind the bar, like common trash.”
“That’s what I heard too.”
“What else do you know?” she asked. “Come on, you must know more than they’re saying on the news so far.” Leaning forward, she snapped her fingers. “Gossip, boy. Give me the gossip.”
He shook his head.
“What has Jane told you?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Oh, come on -”
“I’m serious,” he continued. “She’s clammed up. She says she can’t trust me with information in case I put it in the newspaper.”
“Which, to be fair, you would do.”
“Not necessarily.”
“You should bring her over here and I’ll get her tipsy,” Audrey replied. “Oil her up and she’ll soon spill the beans.”
“Jane’s not like that,” Jack told her. “She takes her job seriously. A little too seriously, sometimes. She doesn’t leak to the press, not even when the press is her husband.”
“You need to protect the children,” Audrey told him. “I’m serious, Jack. They’ll hear bits and pieces about what’s happening, and they’ll fill in the gaps for themselves. You need to sit them down and talk to them properly. They’re old enough.”
He shook his head. “The kids are barely aware of it. They’re too young to understand.”
“You don’t think this horrible murder will be the talk of the schoolyard?” she asked. “Please, Jack, I know it’s an uncomfortable matter, but you don’t need to go into all the gruesome details. Just let them know they’re safe.”
“Sure,” he replied, turning to look out across the sun-soaked courtyard, and at the town square a little further away. He watched for a moment as people criss-crossed the square, going about their daily business. “Everyone’s safe in Bowley.”
VIII
“And Daddy says we can go to the park and ride the roller-coaster,” Lucy continued breathlessly as she took more decorations from the shoebox and carried them over to the Christmas tree. “Can we, Mummy? Can we, please?”
“Well…” Beth wrapped some tinsel around the tree, threading it between the branches. “That sounds good, sweetheart, but I think they have age restrictions on those things. You have to -”
“It’ll be fine,” Bob said, watching from the doorway. He was already in his suit, ready to go to work again. At least, that was where he said he was going. “Don’t put a downer on it, Beth. Kids love the funfair.”
“Yeah,” she replied, struggling to keep from wrapping the next strand of tinsel around her husband’s neck and pulling tight, “but there are age restrictions. It’s based on height and things like that. Have you checked the website?”
“You check it while I’m out,” he told her.
“So I can deliver the bad news and seem like the mean one?” she replied, glaring at him.
“Just chill, babe,” he said, heading over to her and trying to give her a goodnight kiss, only for her to duck out of the way and start arranging some more tinsel. “Seriously, what’s got into you?” he asked.
“We’re decorating the Christmas tree,” she pointed out. “We’re busy. Or do you think this kind of thing just magically happens without any human involvement? Like everything else in this family.”
“Huh.” He stared at her for a moment. “You’ve definitely seemed a little off lately.”
She smiled flatly, but said nothing.
“Have I done anything to -”
“Shouldn’t you get going?” she asked him curtly. “I’m sure you’re required to get there before things can really get going. I imagine Tom and Candy will be pleased to see you.”
“Tom and Candy?” He frowned. “Well, I guess…”
Making his way around the tree, he tried again to kiss her, and again she stepped neatly out of the way.
“Beth -”
“Daddy!” Lucy called out, running to him with some baubles in her hands. “Can you put these up near the top for me?”
“Of course,” he replied, taking the baubles and hooking them onto a few branches. “I wish I could stay home this evening, guys, and help with all of this. I always love when we do stuff as a family, but duty calls. Seriously, Lanegan would have me over the coals if I called in sick.” He waited for Beth to reply, but after a moment he realized she was deliberately and carefully avoiding eye contact, preferring to focus on adding more decorations to the tree. “Okay,” he said finally, leaning closer to try one more time to kiss her, before thinking better of it and heading to the door. “See you guys tomorrow!”
“See you tomorrow,” Beth replied through gritted teeth.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Lucy ran after him, out into the hallway.
As she listened to Bob and Lucy talking at the front door, Beth tried to focus on the tree and block out everything else. She knew that in a couple of weeks’ time, the entire family would be filling the house, including Ben, and everyone would have to pretend to be excruciatingly friendly. There was a part of her that wanted to get Bob out of the house before then, to cut things off cleanly, but she still didn’t know how she was going to make her move. As she grabbed the stepladder and dragged it over to the tree, she heard the front door closing and realized that he was off, probably to meet up with the little bimbo from his office for another night of fun.
“Mummy!” Lucy shouted, running back through and grabbing the angel from the shoebox. “Can you put her on top of the tree?”
“It’s a little early,” she replied.
“Please, Mummy!”
“Fine.” Taking the angel, she looked at it for a moment. Blonde and with a big smile on its face, the damn thing momentarily reminded her of Candy from Bob’s office.
“Can we give her a name?” Lucy asked.
“Sure,” Beth muttered, climbing the stepladder so she could reach the top of the tree. “What do you want to call her?”
“Candy!”
Freezing for a moment, Beth looked down at her daughter.
“That’s one of Daddy’s friend’s names, isn’t it?” the little girl asked. “I heard him talking to someone named Candy on the phone earlier!”
“You did, huh?” she replied, feeling a sense of pure anger starting to rise up through her body until it seemed as if it was going to burst out through the top of her head. “Well, that’s lovely, isn’t it?
I’m so glad Daddy has friends.” Climbing the steps, she raised the angel, ready to place her on top of the tree. “What exactly did you hear Daddy saying?”
“Just that he’d see her later.”
“So he was making plans?”
“Can we get fake snow this year?”
“Where was Daddy when you overheard him?”
“In the bathroom.”
“And was he talking kind of quietly?”
“A little bit.”
“Huh,” she replied, forcing herself to stay calm.
“Are you going to do it?”
“What?” It took a moment before she remembered the angel she was holding. “Right. Yeah, sure.”
“She’s beautiful,” Lucy said with a smile. “I think Candy’s the prettiest angel ever. I love her!”
“Yep,” Beth muttered. “She’s a stunner alright.” With that, she rammed the angel into place with such force that the top of the tree burst straight through the top of the model’s head, skewering her completely.
Slowly, Beth turned to look down at Lucy and saw the horrified look on her daughter’s face.
***
“I can’t tell you anything, Jack!” Jane said for the tenth, maybe twentieth time, as they sat eating dinner. “Can you stop asking? Especially in…” She lowered her voice. “Especially in front of the kids!”
“Come on,” Stuart replied, waiting eagerly for more juicy details, “just tell us something! Is it true that her eyes had been cut out and -”
“No!” Jane said firmly.
“What about her tongue? I heard he ate it and -”
“No!” Jane said again, before turning to her husband. “Do you see how this is already turning into some kind of big frenzy? I can’t talk about it, so let’s just shut the conversation down, yeah?”
“Are you kids finished?” Jack asked, turning to them.
“I want to know more about the dead woman,” Stuart replied. “Everyone was talking about her at school today, and there are all these gross rumors. Mum, don’t you think you have a duty to inform the public and tell them the truth, including all the gory details, so that the gossip doesn’t spiral out of control? There might be a maniac out there, and we need to know how to avoid him!”
